Dabashi: Slavoj Zizek and Harum Scarum

In Gene Nelson’s “Harum Scarum” (1965), featuring Elvis Presley as the Hollywood heartthrob Johnny Tyronne, we meet the action movie star travelling through the Orient while promoting his new film, “Sands of the Desert”. Upon arrival, however, Elvis Presley/Johnny Tyronne is kidnapped by a gang of assassins led by a temptress “Oriental” named Aishah, who wish to hire him to carry out an assassination. Emboldened by proper “Western virtues”, Elvis will do no such thing and manages to sing and dance his way out of the way of the conniving “Orientals”.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian philosopher, made a rather abrupt staccato observation – a hit-and-run strike worthy of an action hero – very much reminiscent of the fate of Elvis Presley and his Oriental sojourn: